


Bloodless

by manics_and_me



Category: A Small Town in Germany, LE CARRE John - Works
Genre: Blow Jobs, M/M, Philosophical Discussion, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:29:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29698509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manics_and_me/pseuds/manics_and_me
Summary: ‘Fucking hell,’ spat Turner, rolling the words around in his mouth as if to get the full flavour of his own disgust. ‘You lot really are absolutely bloodless, eh? Clinging on to the dregs of British dignity, prostituting yourselves to keep the lie alive for a day longer… Leo was better than the lot of you put together.’
Relationships: Alan Turner/Peter De Lisle





	Bloodless

**Author's Note:**

> A Small Town in Germany fic? In this economy? 
> 
> I just love le Carre and his incredibly homosocial, homoerotic works okay.

‘Alan.’

Someone was saying his name from behind him. The sound penetrated only vaguely.

‘Alan.’

  
There was a hand on his arm, fingers wrapped around his elbow and digging in hard. But Turner was still looking at Leo’s increasingly pale face, his eyes moving rapidly over the slight body. He felt if he could only determine what had happened, that would be of help somehow. Yet though he saw himself in his mind’s-eye crouching, supporting Leo’s small head, feeling for a pulse, calling out in his broad, carrying voice for help, he stayed standing just where he was. The body seemed to get smaller as it lay on the ground.

  
‘Alan, for God’s sake, we better move,’ muttered the voice behind him, and the hand gripping his elbow gave a decisive tug that caused him to stumble backwards. He turned his rough, pale eyes to the figure behind him, but it seemed to take a moment to resolve into something he could assign meaning to. De Lisle looked at him with exasperation and pulled him forward.

  
‘Some agency man you are, felled into stupidity by shock,’ grimaced De Lisle, pulling him through the crowd. He moved with precision, confidently directing them through gaps, turning them away from the most hazardous members of the throng. The crowd was becoming more dangerous in the confusion, its febrile excitement turning in any direction without Karfeld leading them from the front, like an orchestra without a conductor becoming hopelessly discordant. Turner said nothing and let himself be led, but by the time they had made it out of the square and across a side street his eyes were clearer and his expression more present.

  
‘Peter,’ he said, his hand moving to cover De Lisle’s that still gripped his arm hard enough to bruise.

  
‘Sorry,’ De Lisle frowned, and let go quickly. Then, without preamble: ‘you could do nothing for him.’

  
‘What do you think happened?’

  
The noise of the crowd was still floating towards them, but from one street removed it could have been the sound of a party.

  
‘I think Siebkron got him. It was always one of the two possible outcomes, and I must say the more likely one at that.’ As De Lisle said this, he gave himself a little shake, as if to rid himself of the unpleasant experience. Turner could see his usual glibness was strained.

  
‘Come back to the house, Alan.’

  
De Lisle looked him full in the face now, and his arm came up again as if to retake Turner’s arm. He did not make contact, though, and so the limb hovered awkwardly between them, looking absurdly vulnerable in its lonely position. Turner had the silly urge to force it down before it was blasted off by some unseen projectile.

  
‘What about Bradfield?’

  
De Lisle shrugged.

  
‘It’s a problem solved, I’d say, as far as he’s concerned.’

  
An ugly look passed over Turner’s face. He jerked his head in a nod towards De Lisle, and they moved on, Turner walking a step behind.

  
.

  
Sat once again in De Lisle’s deep armchair, glass of whiskey in his hand, Turner noticed the shirt he had bloodied with his beaten face hung on the back of the bedroom door. He remembered, with a feeling like a drop of cold water running down his spine, the feeling of De Lisle’s hands gently cleaning his face of blood. The sight made him feel strangely at home.

  
‘I don’t remember the journey from my hotel room,’ he remarked. The walk up to De Lisle’s house had stirred no memory for him, though he had looked carefully at the wide paved path, the ornamental stonework, and the manicured lawn.

  
‘I’m not surprised. I had you slung over my shoulder from the car to the house. They did give you quite a thrashing.’

  
Turner looked speculatively at De Lisle’s body, and the smaller man watched with bemusement as Turner’s eyes raked him up and down.

  
‘Yes, alright, it wasn’t particularly graceful, as I’m sure you are currently imagining.’

  
‘Well, thanks all the same.’

  
De Lisle smiled, somewhat wryly.

  
‘You’re very welcome.’

  
The armchairs both faced in the same direction, so they spoke in parallel to each other, directing their thoughts at the opposite wall. Both men felt keenly how much this aided the conversation. Both were eager to talk, unwilling to be alone, and unsure how to begin any topic of serious note. They stopped and started on a few meaningless subjects until De Lisle said,

  
‘You wanted him to kill Karfeld.’

  
‘Yes.’

  
‘It wouldn’t have made anything better in the long run.’

  
This seemed to be the conversation Turner had been waiting for, and he jumped on the opportunity with gusto.

  
‘Better in the long run? One Nazi mass murderer would be dead, rather than enjoying a political ascendancy. I’m sure there were people in Britain who would have, at one time at least, considered that a decent day’s work. Of course I wanted Harting to kill him! I’d kill him myself.’ He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees so he could cut across their safe lines of conversation and appraise De Lisle. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  
‘That question is hypothetical to the point of meaninglessness.’

  
‘Is it,’ scoffed Turner disgustedly, taking a large drink.

  
‘Yes! Yes, it is! Do you mean if Karfeld and myself existed in a vacuum containing nothing but his previous actions? Then baring certain moral scruples about the act of cold-blooded murder, yes, I imagine I would. Do you mean here, in Bonn, now? Or perhaps only if I could get away with it? Then, possibly.’

  
Turner moved to interrupt, but De Lisle cut him off swiftly.

  
‘But here, now, in this reality in which we both regrettably find ourselves? When doing so would wreak havoc on our delicate relationship with the Germans and jeopardise our country’s only real chance to renegotiate a place on the world stage? No, then I would not. I would not.’

  
De Lisle looked as exerted as Turner had ever seen him. There was a faint, and not unbecoming, flush on his high cheekbones and his grip on his glass had turned his knuckles white. He was looking straight ahead with seeming determination to not meet Turner’s gaze.

  
‘Fucking hell,’ spat Turner, rolling the words around in his mouth as if to get the full flavour of his own disgust. ‘You lot really are absolutely bloodless, eh? Clinging on to the dregs of British dignity, prostituting yourselves to keep the lie alive for a day longer… Leo was better than the lot of you put together.’ He let his accent jump forward in his throat, another layer of the conflict between them.

  
There was a crease between De Lisle eyes as if he was in pain.

  
‘It rather depends, does it not, on how one defines ‘better’. You might ask, better at what?’ He held out a hand as Turner started to speak again. ‘However it sounds, I am not trying to split hairs for the sake of it. Certainly, Harting was nobler than me, than the rest of us. Certainly, his cause was more honourable. Certainly, he had more passion, more drive, more self-belief. For all of this we admire him, we mourn his death. But what practical good would his actions have achieved?’

  
De Lisle seemed himself quite angry now.

  
‘I am well aware that it is far more glamorous to be a Nazi killer. But beyond that attractive statement, what do his actions do for – what is it they say - the man on the Clapham omnibus? You might say they teach him to hope, they show him a triumph of the human spirit. They demonstrate moral backbone. And against that, what is our campaign to join the common market? Nothing. Nothing but the infinitesimal improvement of millions of lives, in ways too small to measure and therefore non-existent. The economy improves, our cooperation with our neighbours allows for a safer Europe. But what is that against one dead Nazi?’

  
‘You tell yourself that,’ muttered Turner, but some of the rage had drained from his voice. He was still awkwardly turned in his chair, craning his neck so he could look at De Lisle’s face.

  
‘It is the truth, or at least the version of it that I have found to be the most convincing. Believe me, I was disappointed too. I know it is a cowardly, sad, limping sort of truth, but I can’t help but see it to be the reality. In a way- ’ and here he did lean forward, did turn to face Turner, both of them now hanging forward in their chairs to lock eyes ‘in a way, is it not you and Harting who are the cowards for clinging to the notion of moral heroism at all?’

  
Turner felt hot, and like he no longer new what he wanted or expected to get from this conversation. He knew he liked De Lisle, or at least more than the rest of them, or even if he didn’t like him, he still felt an urge to be near him and spend time with him. This was a different kind of argument than what he had had with Bradfield, which had made him feel only a sick rage and disgust. He felt De Lisle’s desire to be understood, his desire to explain. He too was in search of that same understanding.

  
‘It is,’ Turner said, quietly but sharply. De Lisle raised a now weary looking eyebrow at him. ‘It is cowardly. It is limping, and sad. Christ. Is this what we’re doing with our lives?’  
De Lisle smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not sure I would say that you and I do the same thing.’ His smile faded, and he turned back to the relative safety of facing the wall. ‘You, I think, have much more of Harting’s flavour than I do.’

  
‘Don’t flatter me.’

  
‘If I was flattering you, you’d know about it,’ De Lisle shot back, and Turner snorted. And suddenly it became easier, and more appealing, to seek to comfort rather than to challenge.

  
‘I’d take you over Bradfield any day. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’

  
‘They’re a rotten crowd.’ De Lisle smiled faintly and drained his glass. He heaved himself out of the deep chair and made his way to the sideboard, where the whiskey sat in a heavy-bottomed decanter. Turner watched him move. He had the classic lithe build of the sun-starved, minor English aristocrat. Athletic in the sense of cross-country and, at a push, tennis. Certainly not rugby. Turner would usually find something to resent in this kind of appearance, so different from his own broadness, his flat-footed walk, the redness in his skin that never quite faded. But as De Lisle leaned against the sideboard, he felt only interest and a dim covetousness.

  
De Lisle moved towards the seated man with the decanter in his hand to top up his glass. Turner held it up and held De Lisle’s gaze as he poured. Casually, he wrapped a large hand around De Lisle’s somewhat bony wrist as he made to turn away, and drained his glass of whiskey, before holding it out again. He felt the red hue rising in his face in response to the alcohol. His eyes never left De Lisle’s face.

  
De Lisle looked frankly back at him and refilled the glass again. He drained his own tumbler, held in his other hand, before placing it on the low table. Still he stood in front of Turner, standing just inches before his open knees – not quite between his legs. Turner’s hand was still on his wrist, and now he swept his thumb over the thin skin where the veins were close to the surface. De Lisle’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, and an almost pained expression passed fleetingly over his face. The air between them was thick, as if the Bonn fog had seeped in through De Lisle’s tasteful blinds.

  
‘Alan,’ De Lisle murmured as he took a step forward to be bracketed by Turner’s heavy legs. They were both feeling the buzz of an adrenaline spike, smothered forward into the mellowness of whiskey. The only light in the room came from one dim corner lamp. Cars would drive by semi-regularly, sending out a melancholy rumble and cutting the room to ribbons with the beams of their headlights.

  
De Lisle’s free hand reached forward, his fingers brushing against the side of Turner’s jaw, so lightly that it could have been an accident. Then Turner tugged on the wrist gripped in his hand, and De Lisle exhaled sharply and moved, shoving the whiskey decanter he still held on to hastily to the side. He fell to his knees swiftly and bent forward to kiss Turner in one movement. The kiss was hard; their teeth clashed. Turner bit down savagely on De Lisle’s lower lip, which elicited another sharp exhale. De Lisle’s hands spasmed where there were grasping the broad meat of Turner’s thighs. Turner wanted to make him groan.

  
They embraced with a fervent passion that seemed to belie their earlier conversation - and their entire relationship to date. Turner pushed De Lisle’s head towards his crotch, and De Lisle looked up at him for a moment with flashing eyes, before undoing his fly and freeing his erection. Turner put his large hand on the back of De Lisle’s head and yanked at the hair cruelly. His powerful arousal was spiked confusingly with pangs of rage, and for a moment he saw again in his mind’s eye the small and shrinking body of Hastings. He drove his hard cock into De Lisle’s mouth as if to drive the image far from his mind. De Lisle swallowed messily, and with Turner’s hand still gripping the back of his head hard he began to bob up and down. Turner knew, dimly, on one level, that he thought himself to be making some clever point, about authenticity, perhaps, and the human spirit and so on, that he was trying to prove something to De Lisle – although whether about him or about Turner himself he could not say. But that feeling was indistinct, only an undercurrent beneath the broad and powerful waves of his lust. He brought his free hand to grip De Lisle’s face and let out a pleased grunt when he felt the shape of the wide head of his own cock through the other man’s cheek.

  
De Lisle seemed similarly swept up. He was still silent but for the wet, gulping sounds his throat made around Turners cock, sounds that Turner did his best to commit to memory. But he moved with an undeniable eagerness, and his fingers dug into to Turner’s thighs hard enough to bruise. He seemed perhaps to be chasing his own imagined victory over Turner, seeking to prove his own point obliquely through the act. Turner wanted, suddenly, to know what De Lisle thought he was saying.

  
‘Peter,’ he gasped, and in his mind he finished the question - _what are you trying to prove?_

  
But instead, with a final swallow of De Lisle’s that found the head of Turner’s cock deep down his throat, he was coming. He saw rather than felt his own hands gripping hard enough to hurt in De Lisle’s hair and around his jaw, and then everything went white around the edges.

  
He blinked and the room resolved itself largely back into focus. De Lisle sat back on his heels in front of the armchair, wiping his mouth roughly with the back of his hand. His eyes streamed. He coughed, and Turner realised he must have choked, and felt a fleeting guilt. He leaned forward and cupped his hand around De Lisle’s throat. The kneeling man raised a wry eyebrow. They met each other’s gaze for a long moment. Their debate – argument – still hung, unresolved, in the air, but there was also a humour, almost a comradery between them now, that caused both men to smirk.

  
De Lisle reached out and picked up his tumbler. He downed the contents and winced slightly at the burn.

  
‘You’ll stay on in Bonn, won’t you, for a few days,’ he said, smirk still playing lightly on his features.

  
‘I’ll stay,’ replied Turner.

  
De Lisle’s smirk became something of a real smile, and he stood up and moved towards the bedroom. Walking a step behind him, Turner followed.


End file.
